Saturday’s edition of Nigerian Idol saw contestant Efezino say her goodbyes to the show as she failed to get into the top 5. “What?!” You say? The guy with the mediocre voice and equally mediocre dance skills is still in the running? How did that happen?

To be fair, when JayFeel is not running around and he takes his time to stand still and sing, he has some real talent buried (deep, deep, DEEP, down) somewhere, and it is resurrected on occasion to prevent every performance from being a total train wreck. However, it seems that time and time again, he has been praised for his occasional moonwalk, back flips, and his singing is often glossed over—more often than not because vocally he is outmatched by his fellow competitors.

So is Nigerian Idol becoming a form over substance affair? Thankfully, no. Sunday night saw Dare Art Alade bring the hammer down on the singer/performer, telling him that at this level of this kind of show, his vocal abilities needed to be at the fore, not his dancing. JayFeel performed Luther Vandross’s song, ‘If I Didn’t Know Better’, and the classic ‘Taxi Driver’ song, and while he put on his usual song and dance performance, it seems the judges were not moved.

Dare was equally critical of Abasiakan’s first performance of Luther’s ‘I’d Rather’, telling Abasiakan he needed to be more connected with the audience. The regular judges agreed with the megastar most of the time on his critiques, even though they had moments of dissent. Now that the show is counting down (it all comes to a close in one month), the judges are making sure that they give the contestants the home truth about what it takes to be a Nigerian Idol.

Nigerian Idol is the biggest music show across Africa and it is brought to you by Etisalat, in association with Pepsi and supported by Beat FM.